n the August 31, 2011 issue of Education Week, former educator Ama Nyamekye reflects on the controversy surrounding high-stakes testing. In college, she was active in protesting these types of tests and thought that “good teachers should be left to their own devices.” She writes, “ I was certain that I was a good teacher. For the most part, my students were punctual, respectful, and engaged. It wasn’t until my second year in the classroom that I began questioning this assumption.”
The incident that made her begin questioning was a comment from her administrator during a routine evaluation. She asked Nyamekye how she knew her students were really understanding the material, and urged her to develop more rigorous assessments of student learning.
The next school year, Nyamekye decided to have her sophomore English students take the state Comprehensive English Regents Examinations a year early. As she deconstructed the exam, she began to really understand its strengths and weaknesses, and recognize it as more than a final hurdle to be crossed at the end of the year. She discovered it is also a tool that could be utilized to balance out her own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher.
Having once dismissed the standardized test “for its narrow focus on a discrete set of skills,” the exam showed her where there were gaps in her curriculum and how her self-made assessments were skewed in the direction of her strengths as a teacher. She also had been using her intimate knowledge of her students when designing her assessments, which not surprisingly influenced her grading and perceptions of student performance.
Nyamekye does not contend that there is no room for improvement in the way standardized tests are developed and administered, and is far from advocating the “drill and kill” approach feared by most educators. Her perspective is insightful:
When I “depoliticized” the test, I found a useful and flawed ally. The exam excelled where I struggled, offering comprehensive and standards-based assessments. I thrived where the test fell short, designing creative, performance-based projects. Together, we were strategic partners…The test didn’t make my students smarter. It made the teacher smarter. I learned that my job wasn’t simply to encourage students to relentlessly pursue knowledge. I needed to constantly test what I thought I knew about teaching.
To read her full article, please visit http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/08/31/02nyamekye_ep.h31.html?r=1770956102
